


Dark Hours

by anotherFMAfan



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003)
Genre: Gen, Heavy Angst, Triggers, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-17 01:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10583238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherFMAfan/pseuds/anotherFMAfan
Summary: "All night, as he breathed the winter chill in and out, in and out of his lungs, Edward knew what the morning would bring."Warnings: Written as platonic Roy+Ed, but depicts a very close emotional relationship that some may feel reads as RoyXEd.War AU, post restoration of Al. HEAVY ANGST and sensitive content.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written and originally posted on LJ in late 2010.

It was morning.

The sun had been creeping steadily toward the horizon, the few, wisplike clouds turning gold, then pink, and finally red, in warning of the coming dawn. Soon, the winter sky would be filled with that harsh, cold light, and it would be day. That was inescapable.

The night before, the soldiers had wanted to talk. To panic and plan and fuss over their commanding officer, but Fullmetal had forbidden it. He had snapped at them to get back against the walls of the decrepit little shack and sleep. No one was to move from their place until the sun was up, and anyone who had an objection to that could voice it to his right fist. They had obeyed, reluctantly at first, shifting restlessly and shooting each other anxious glances. But as night fell, and what little light had been afforded their pathetic excuse for a shelter disappeared, leaving the troops in darkness, it had quieted. Without the light, all the men had were their own thoughts, the cold of the night, and a foot of darkness in each direction. Everything the war had left them.

Edward knew the smart thing to do would have been to take the night to rally. Take command, pool their information and make a plan for the next day. Organize watch shifts for the night, collect and re-distribute rations and ammunition. Those were the things he would have done. But Edward had not; he had barked the men back against the thin, rotting walls, and sat there. Sat there all night, his lap cushioning the man’s chest and shoulders, his left arm crooked to support his neck and his head. That had been more important than troop formations or battle plans. Protecting his dark head from the cold ground through the dark hours had been more important than anything.

Now, with the sun so close to breaking, Edward could see his face again, tipped toward him, forehead resting gently against Ed’s waist. The black hair against his forehead, his eyebrows and eyelashes had never looked so stark against his pale-white skin. He hadn’t paid as much attention to them as to his black eyes. Their depthless, dark intensity had always demanded Edward’s focus.

Edward had supported Mustang in the position they were now until darkness could offer him protection of the secret he was keeping from the men. Then Edward had held Roy in his arms, cradled his head to him and pressed his own stubble-covered cheek to his friend’s. He did not weep. Edward knew he ought to feel afraid, alone, battle-worn and traumatized. He ought to feel the grief of the war and the loss crushing his heart. He ought to weep now, when he had a rare moment in a vicious, relentless war to express his fear and his pain with Roy alone; yet weep he did not.

All night, as he breathed the winter chill in and out, in and out of his lungs, Edward knew what the morning would bring. His rank as Mustang’s second in this particular rag-tag group and the threat of his fist had given him the night, but come day, it would be war again. It would be reality; the secrets of the dark could not be hidden in the light. The men would find out. No—Edward would tell them. He would tell them, and do everything he should have when they’d first arrived at the shelter. He could no longer stand in Mustang’s shadow, and claim any guilt in this war only by virtue of that place. He could no longer play victim to the necessity to kill. He could no longer stand as just one in the unending line of blue uniforms; he had to lead the line into the depths of hell. He would step forward and inherit this war, this goal, and everything that came with it, as his own. The blood and the bullets, the graves and the tears, the hope and the terror. Politics; the dirtiest word among those. He would take it all, to do or to die. He would pay any price to help see the man’s goal to fruition. To see Mustang’s beloved country to peace.

In the twilight, the men were still huddled inside their self-made patches of darkness, eyes turned inward, but wouldn’t be for long. Reality was on its way.

Edward looked back down at the face of his commanding officer. Roy was not only that; he was his friend, his confidant, his war buddy and his mentor. Despite-- and even partly because of-- all of their antagonistic pretense, he was one of the people Edward loved the most in his life, and he felt no embarrassment in the truth of that, that winter morning.

Edward ran his hand down Mustang’s arm until he reached his hand, clasping it in his own for a moment. Then he carefully and gently tugged the glove off of Roy’s lax fingers. Quickly removing his own battle-stained white glove, Edward pressed it into Mustang’s hand and curled the man’s fingers around it. Ed slid the ignition cloth on over his metal joints, eyes tracing the red lines of ink on the back—the circle that had made the Flame Alchemist famous, had made him an officer, had pushed him through the ranks—and to the brink of suicide. The circle that had brought him, eventually, to a small town in the east, where two boys brought a monster to life. Fullmetal clenched his hand into a fist, the crisp cloth whispering in the stillness.

Edward turned his smudged face to the glassless window, squinting against the sunlight. It was day—the morning of January-something that would go down in the record books, some day. As far as the men assembled there, crouched in the dirty hut and shivering against the cold, would know, it would be the day General Roy Mustang, hero of Amestris and Fuhrer-to-have-been, died. Later on would come the story that Colonel Elric had tried valiantly to save his life all night, only to have his efforts proved in vain as the great man’s life slipped away in the cold dawn. That was sufficient for the history books and tavern war-stories. Edward would take the truth of that moment, in the dying red sunset of the night before, to his own grave.

That much of the man he loved Ed would keep for himself.


End file.
